Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 10:51:10 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: Re: (urth) revelatory message/converting dislike

William Ansley quoted and wrote:
>>>Of course, someone on this list could post a revelatory message that
>>>makes me see the light, but I haven't been convinced by any attempts
>>>so far.
>>
>>Ah!  I will steer clear of the more irritating aspects of this and focus on
>>the more intriguing root of it.  It applies to William, since he wrote it,
>>but it may very well apply to others.
>
>I'm sorry that I irritated you, Michael, but I'm not sure how. Is is
>just that I don't like the Short Suns books or that I say so or that
>I am incapable of clearly articulating why?

William, the sentence I quoted seems rather loaded to me: "revelatory
message," "makes me see the light," "any attempts so far."  It practically
throws down a gauntlet.  All together it paints you as being something like
a fairytale magistrate, having established a contest with a prize to anyone
who can prove to you that the world is flat, and after listening to a long
sequence of sages and lunatics you are getting understandably weary of the
whole thing.

I find it irksome to be told that I (as a member of the class of people who
post on this list and like TBOTSS) have failed in a contest, when I was not
aware of said contest and in fact I would not knowingly participate in such
a contest (blind-man's bluff/battle royale). OT1H I'm deeply sorry to have
"let you down," yet OTOH since I didn't enter the race and I didn't even
hear the starting gun, then am I to feel sorry for not running a race that
I would never chose to run?  Instead I am irked.  Aside from all that, I
wondered what result you were seeking, using such terms as you were using.

>>My question to William and anyone else who cares to answer is this: Have
>>you ever received a revelatory message about a disliked Wolfe fiction that
>>made you "see the light" and revise your dislike of it?
>
>You have misread my intent in the passage you quoted, above. I am not
>"pining for conversion through revelation." In fact, I doubt that any
>revelation about the Short Sun books could "convert" me. It was my
>way of saying, "Since so many people on this mailing list, who seem
>to know so much more about literature, religion and Gene Wolfe
>himself than I do, like the books and I don't, maybe my opinion isn't
>valid."
>
>Having put it that way, perhaps I can see the source of your
>irritation. If I doubt the validity of my own opinion, I shouldn't
>have bothered everyone on this list with it.

I don't understand how your opinion can be anything other than valid.

I guess I can understand a desire to have one's opinion "validated" by
being shared by x-number of people, if that is part of what you are saying,
but I think it is valid even if nobody else has the same opinion.

If you are seeking validity, then just like in WWOZ, you had it all along.
But that is not likely to be the right answer.

=mantis=



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